Regenerative approaches for building climate change resilience into EU agricultural regions prone to desertification

Introduction

The primary objective of AgrOassis is to assist climatic change adaptation in the agricultural sector of the EU’s two most south-easterly countries, Cyprus and Greece, and beyond.

Objectives

To reach the objectives of the EU legislation and policy on climate action, AgrOassis will:

1. Develop, demonstrate, and promote innovative techniques, methods, and approaches.
2. Share best practices as well as close-to-market solutions in areas currently exposed to desertification due to climate change, inappropriate land use, and wildfires.
3. Address regions that are expected to become even more vulnerable under climatic change.

Climate Change Mitigation

AgrOassis will markedly contribute towards climate change mitigation by:

• Promoting carbon farming.
• Supporting biodiversity restoration through effective afforestation in degraded field margins.
• Aiding pollination processes in regions with poor soil quality and very low natural vegetation cover.

Ecosystem Services

The project aims to regenerate ecosystem services within degraded agroecosystems. Additionally, it seeks to identify and remove obstacles related to inappropriate governance and policies that obstruct the implementation of the EU’s Green Deal Agenda and the aim to reach climate neutrality by 2050.

Challenges Identified

Preparatory work for AgrOassis has identified Cyprus as a hotspot of unsustainable soil management practices connected to widely applied tillage. This situation appears to be:

• An indirect side-effect of governmental policies aiming to enforce CAP EU legislation.
• A direct result of inappropriate counselling towards farmers and inadequate training on how to combat desertification.

Private Sector Mobilization

AgrOassis also attempts to mobilize the private sector by utilizing available unexploited resources to promote the circular economy in the agro-sector of Cyprus.

At the same time, it will mobilize private investment towards close-to-market solutions on green waste sustainability and sustainable soil management in line with the EU's Farm to Fork Strategy.